Translation: Sword
art on/offline

Yes, today I’m gonna talk about Sword Art Online (or
more commonly known as SAO). And I was really creative with the heading… I got
the idea to watch this anime, because I saw an article about it in Finland’s anime magazine. (1/2013). There was a big article about it and it was one of the
biggest talk about animes last year. I am a little bit late watching this now,
but I wanted to see what everybody talked about from my relatively amateur
point-of-view.

I didn't spoil my self, so I didn't read the article in anime magazine. So only
thing I knew about it was that it’s about a game that people are stuck in and
if they die in there, they die in real world also. The concept sounded
interesting, but I was more interested why people talked about it so much? And
(maybe in vain) from this point on the text is gonna spoil!

From the very beginning SAO was really
addictive, because of the death aspect. Also the fact that Kirito was a
beta tester of the game saves the viewer from extra time to get to know the game
and gives more time to the drama and also to admire the beautiful world of SAO.

SAO’s world is really beautiful and while watching the
anime I sometimes sighed about the fact that it would be just so cool to jump
into a different world with all your senses. Fantasy themed MMO-game would feel
like getting all your dreams of sinking into books and movies worlds true. The
anime’s quality in art was awesome both background and action scenes
point-of-view. Also the animes second game AlfHeim Online gives even more
dreams to fantasy and scifi nerds: There people are able to fly. Also the music
of the series was amazing. The opening and endings and also the soundtracks made
it more possible to sink into the anime’s world.

The biggest surprise for me while watching SAO was that
it wasn't played to the end but there’s was another game also. From time to
time it felt like two different animes with the same people were mashed
together under one name. Also because of that the Beginning of the series felt
like it went on too fast. Suddenly two whole years had passed by. During that
point started thinking what happens when they wake up? Would the bodies have
been moved to hospitals or would all the bodies of gamers have starved to
almost death? What would happen to the people who live alone and they don’t
have family who would move them to hospital?

The most interesting plot twist was to put the series high
point, in other words beating SAO in the middle of the
anime. I almost believed that the anime ended when Kirito woke up in the 14th
episode, because I couldn't figure out how it would continue rationally after
that.

And it didn't continue rationally. The last half of
the series was worst in my opinion and I would have taken a shorter anime which
ends to Kirito’s wake up and Asuna and him ending up together rather than
watching half the series how Asuna’s role turned from fighter to damsel in
distress. Asuna was more interesting character when she was not locked up in a
cage. Though I have to give a plus, that I didn't guess the last boss in SAO to
be Heathcliff/Kayaba Akihiko. It really was a functional plot twist. As it is
the other bad guys in the anime were also well written.

The other side characters were a little useless. The
girls in some of the episodes in begin felt like they were tried to be paired
with Kirito. Also Kirito’s random player buddies (I mean, the ones who didn’t
die) felt partly unnecessary, when the relationship of Kirito and Asuna rook
the whole attention. Also their virtual child Yui was annoying, because she
could move from game world to another. Although she gave a nice spin to the
drama side.

I have to say that when I started watching SAO, I
noticed that they used a lot of game vocabulary, that I would have not
understood if I haven’t played WoW. On the other hand these little things are
not so necessary from the plots pint-of-view, but I would have enjoyed it more
without the game jargon. And I also thought that some people who watch SAO,
might have not played any role play games before, so all the “parties”, “raids”
and “avatars” don’t mean anything to them.

Game jargon might feel like it’s hard to understand
but the other parts of the anime is so cute and gripping that you could watch
this fluff with drama and action to the end of the world. I gave this 8/10, but definitively
I would have given more if the series ended after the first half. (sorry about all the pictures being in the Finnish part :D)

Hundred
books in year 2013

I started this challenge at the beginning of this
year, but I didn’t realize I could put it in here also. Now you can see it from
the side bar on the right. At the moment I am a little (*krhmlotkrhm*) late from the amount I should
have read up this point, if I try to read it somewhat evenly. I’ve been
choosing too thick books to read XD.

I was supposed to
write this post yesterday, but I spent the whole evening with my friends and my
sister watching movies, or more closely the last three Harry Potter’s. I was there
to 2 am and
woke up this “morning” at 12:30. It has
been so long since I last slept this long. Usually I wake up at the latest at
ten on weekends as well. And it must be fun to watch Potter’s with me, because
I like to comment everything that happens XD for example pointing out “That’s
not how it went in books.” or “Did you know that…” I got to explain a lot nice
details about the plot :DDD. I sometimes get shocked of how much I know little “not
important” details about Potter’s. Well, I had fun.

I got my ticket to The GazettE’s concert! It became
with a little more excitement than I thought, because I had booked a driving
lesson on the time the tickets went on sale. I was home at 9:45 (and the tickets
were on sale at 9) and I got the ticket. At that point the site that sold the
tickets showed “only a little tickets left”. By eleven, the tickets were
outbooked. However, I saw yesterday at one point that there were a new entry of
tickets on sale. I went to pick up my ticket on Thursday, because I wanted it concretely
on my hand before I was really sure of its existence XD.

So, Pottermore opened The prisoner of Azkaban’s
chapters 8 to 15. I obviously going to spoil them, when talking about this… On
the whole I could say that these chapter’s were the most boring up to this
point. The only nice new thing were the extracts of the audio books in some
chapters.

It was nice that they had put the sweets from the book
to honeydukes, that were mentioned in the book. I’m annoyed because there was
no game that generates a Patronus. If they don’t do that at any point I’ll be
so sad. And the game would bring a nice extra to the chapter where Harry practice’s
making them. It was fun, when in the chapter 14. You get to read the marauder’s
map’s mocks of Snape :D It is one of the funniest parts in the whole series.

I watched Love Hina during the last two weeks. I haven’t
really watched any anime for girls except Fruits Basket. So I decided to watch
something other than Shounen. I chose Love Hina, because I've heard the animes name
before and I assume it’s some kind of “classic” and a starter of harem animes? Surprisingly,
I liked Love Hina pretty much.

I don’t know if spoiler alert is unnecessary here, but
surprisingly I am gonna spoil. So, I don’t really know what harem animes are
usually like, but I guess, that usually it’s not clear from the start, who of
them the main character is going end up with? This was a little annoying while
watching Love Hina, especially when watching the other girls surrounding
Keitaro. Although, it wasn't said straight nowhere else but in the end, that Naru
was the girl, who he maid the promise with. Furthermore at the beginning the continuous
Keitaro’s beating was fun, but when it started to repeat itself in every
episode and always because of the same reason it started to lose its meaning.

About the other girls in the house I could say that, I
think that Sue and Sarah were annoying and I didn't find Sue’s inventions or the humor that came out of them funny. My favorite of the girls was Motoko,
although at some points the continuous sword swinging was annoying. My least favorite character in the whole anime was Otohime. At the starters she was a good cause
of humor but later she was just annoying because of her too slow thinking. The
best humor to the series was brought by Haruka (Keitaro’s aunt), whose random
point-outs were a nice spice.

Based on the last two chapters of this text, you could
get the feeling that I didn’t like Love Hina. But really, I liked it on the
whole. I don’t know if there would have been netter animes to check out the
harem genre, but I gave this 7/10 points at the end.

I have watched Gintama for 20 episodes now. I started
to watch it because it’s one of my friends’ favorite series’s and I wanted to
know what it’s like. At this point it’s interesting and very funny show. At
least it gives a lot of laughs. One interesting point that I've noticed in the
anime is so called breaking the fourth wall. In almost every episode they talk
like “this anime isn't going in the way it should” or “Shinpachi’s supposed to
be this animes loser!” Anyway, I’ll be watching this series when I am in the
mood, because it’s so long that I don’t feel like doing a marathon.

Yeah, I was surprised myself when I started watching
this, because I didn't actually like the beginning – Naruto. (*I talk about it in here*). On top of that I have heard mostly mocking of Shippuuden like “The
beginning is watchable but the newest episodes are shit.” I decided to give
Naruto a second chance mostly because, it’s so mainstream, that I feel like an
outsider, if I haven’t watched it a bit at least.

I have to say that I was positively surprised. I think
this beginning is a lot better, but know I fear that later the plot will go
worst and I’m not interested anymore. However, for example the music is a lot
better, already in the opening and ending. It’s a big plus. I also like the
fact that Sakura isn't so useless character anymore. I’ll continue watching
this with interest, at least for a while…